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Directed by Robert Aldrich - 10/11

Famed for his macho mise-en-scene and resonant reworkings
of classic action genres, Robert Aldrich became a model for
many younger directors in the 1960s and 70s. Along with
such figures as Roger Corman and Sam Arkoff, he was also a
symbol of the free-spirit of independent filmmaking
(although Aldrich had more interest in quality, and became
renowned for substantive content and the interior meanings
of his works.) He is best recalled for such horror classics
as "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962), and "Hush,
Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1964), both starring Bette Davis.
But, the director also tried his hand at more literary
works, such as "The Killing of Sister George" (1968), and
even commercial comedies like "The Longest Yard" (1974),
starring Burt Reynolds.

Dropping out of college and the career in banking or
politics expected by his prominent Republican family (John
D Rockefeller Jr was an uncle by marriage), Aldrich entered
film as a clerk at RKO in 1941. He rose through the ranks
as a second assistant director, first assistant (working
with Chaplin and Renoir, among others), production manager,
studio manager and screenwriter under contract to
Enterprise Studios (1946-48).

In the early 1950s, Aldrich directed episodes of several TV
series, including the syndicated "China Smith" and NBC's
"The Doctor", before finally making his feature film debut
in 1953 with "The Big Leaguer". This low-budget film
starred Edward G Robinson in one of his first roles after
being cleared of the "red" taint by the House Committee on
un-American Activities. The actor was sorely miscast as the
manager of a training camp for baseball players, not to
mention, Aldrich would later recall, low on self-confidence
after being away from the screen for nearly two years. The
result was not stellar in Robinson's canon, but it did
establish that Aldrich could direct a film under budget and
ahead of schedule. The director soon formed his own
company, Associates and Aldrich, to assume more control of
his career; he then produced most of the films he directed
and also contributed to their screenplays. Aldrich's work
aggressively confronted controversial social and political
issues. Taking uncompromising positions in familiar genres
and revising genre conventions, he challenged both the
studio system and audience expectations.

Aldrich's dominant theme was man's efforts to prevail
against both impossible odds and institutional oppression.
In "Apache" (1954), the only tribal leader left unconquered
after the defeat of Geronimo refuses to be subjugated by
the white man but is also, ultimately, alienated from his
own people. Aldrich returned to the same subject 18 years
later in "Ulzana's Raid" (1972), in which an Apache leader
breaks the reservation's institutional constraints, vowing
to recapture lost land. In depicting the brutal savagery of
the white soldiers, who are oblivious to the hostility they
cause, Aldrich refuses to allow his characters the
traditional redemption offered by the Western
genre.

In "The Big Knife" (1955), the Hollywood studio system was
shown as nurturing dictatorial leaders who push individuals
to compromise and suicide. (The film, which won the Silver
Award at the Venice Film Festival, contains blatant
allusions to real-life moguls Harry Cohn and Jack Warner).
"Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962) and "The Legend of
Lylah Clare" (1968) continued to present a Hollywood
breeding jealousy and empty myths rooted in
egomania.

In "Attack!" (1956), the combination of cowardice and
political compromise displayed by military officers
destroys the common soldiers under their command. "Attack!"
was criticized for Aldrich's violent, often frantic mise-
en-scene: for example, a soldier's arm is slowly crushed
under a tank in a shot that can be taken as a metaphor for
the results of institutional military incompetence. "The
Dirty Dozen" (1967) reiterated Aldrich's contemptuous view
for a military machine which dehumanized its subjects in
order to make them capable of killing. The violent
"heroics" of Robert Jefferson (Jim Brown)--dropping
grenades that engulf trapped German officers in flames--
illustrated how vicious men become under adversity.

Cynicism and pessimism permeated Aldrich's work. In the
fatalistic "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955), private detective Mike
Hammer attempts to track down the "great whatsit," a
suitcase-sized atomic device which has been stolen by a
spy; but the spy's greedy mistress opens the case,
unleashing the device's deadly power in an apocalyptic
finale. The film is arguably the director's most
aesthetically striking and original, a hyper-kinetic
reworking of the film noir genre that has become something
of a cult favorite.

The abuse of institutional power motivates a terrorist in
the political thriller "Twilight's Last Gleaming" (1977). A
rogue general captures a nuclear missile silo and demands
that the President read on national TV a Joint Chiefs of
Staff memo admitting that over 50,000 Americans and 100,000
Southeast Asians died in a war the government knew America
could never win. He insists that the President restore
public confidence by calling the Vietnam war a "theatrical
holocaust perpetrated by the criminally negligent." In
Aldrich's cynical world-view, the Joint Chiefs sacrifice
the President in order to maintain the credibility of the
military complex.

"All The Marbles" (1981), Aldrich's last film, was largely
neglected by critics and audiences. It depicted two women
wrestlers who confront the greed, sexism and humiliation of
the wrestling world. Aldrich explicitly equated the
physical abuse suffered by the women in the ring with the
social abuse they suffered struggling for success and
respect in a male-dominated field.